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Urza's Mine

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I should take a moment to make apologies to some people. I've been pretty weird at the moment. Honestly I'm not doing to well mentally right now. I'm angry, disappointed and have rage with regards Magic these days. This is down to a few things where mostly I don't feel it's my fault actually but have places blame on myself for over a year now.
Judging wise I'm struggling massively, hugely, insanely and being the extroverted tit that I am I find it harder to tell something properly than try and clear my thoughts thought something like Facebook. I've had my own confidence shaken up by review, by feedback and by actions, confidence in the fact I'm not able to be who I want to be (who I used to be) as a judge.
When things are running well, when heroes are around me to pick up me and collaborate with me I am proud of being a judge, proud of what I can contribute. My european friends in Judging and a good deal of UKISA judges are absolutely incredible as …

Flying Boats and Metal Cats! - A lookback on Aether Revolt.
The months just fly by and we've come to the end of a format, with Amonkhet around the corner it's time to wrap up another season of Standard, this time I'll be looking back at what this meant for competitive play and how as a global community we either solved the format way too early or were just incredibly lazy at innovation. (Hey Chapin, you still there buddy?) So what were the top 5 cards of the set and what happened?

Top 5 Cards in Aether Revolt Standard.
1st - Gideon, Ally of Zendikar.
Gideon remains the most powerful card in Standard, winning games sometimes by himself in a field of no real instant speed answers (because who's playing To The Slaughter anyway?) Gideon features in the Mardu Vehicles/Ballista deck which has been tearing up tournaments since the onset of this Standard. Are you sick of Gideon yet? (That's probably because you don't have a playset or him or aren't using him alre…

So it's 04:36am and I'm trawling through the internet listening to the madness of Mark Shreeve I thought it would be cool to outline my favourite Standard formats to date. We've all seen the "name your fav 5 bands" etc posts all over Facebook and the likes. Well here's something for Magic!
I'll explain what the deal was back then, why they made the list and what made them tick.
My Top 10 Standard Formats.
10) Kamigawa & Ravnica: City of Guilds (2006)

This was the period where we have Urza Tron in standard but it wasn't really everywhere, netdecking still wasn't a full concept (although many were flocking to the Dojo) and we got our first proper 'dual lands' again. My deck of choice was Honden control, using Razia's Purification as a Wrath of God/Armageddon style effect. Pro players were on decks like Zoo (Craig Jones's 2nd place Pro-Tour Finisher with Lightning Helix off the top after a very ballsy Char to his oppoents face!…